(TED Conference/Flickr) Manu Prakash with the Foldscope, a microscope made almost entirely of paper. For a whole lot of people, especially those in developing countries, science — and with it, ...

Microscopes have come a long way since eyeglass makers started using their lenses to look closer and closer at the world around them. But they’ve also gotten a lot more expensive. A modern scanning ...

Paper aeroplanes are the extent of most people’s origami skills, and even then there’s no guarantee they’ll actually be able to fly further than your hand. Get a bit more creative and there are ...

The light microscope changed science and medicine forever, but in the 400-plus years since it was invented, this crucial piece of equipment has gotten pretty expensive and fragile. Manu Prakash and ...

All folded up and ready to magnify: The Foldscope weighs less than two nickels, is small enough to fit in your back pocket and offers more than 2,000-fold magnification. Origami microscope: Lines on ...

Manu Prakash and Jim Cybulski Have designed and created a fantastically innovative origami paper microscope which is capable of providing a powerful yet affordable microscope that is capable of ...

A $1 microscope made of paper might help diagnose diseases in the developing world -- provided there are also people trained to use it. The folded-paper microscope, called the Foldscope, could also ...